At Words Without Borders, I reviewed Chilean novelist Roberto Ampuero’s English language debut, The Neruda Case, a globe-spanning detective story featuring Pablo Neruda and his checkered love life.
Emma Garman
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Who couldn’t use an Odd Fellows Shaving Mug? I should think it would be popular among the youngsters in North Brooklyn.
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“Memoir’s not an easy form. It’s not for beginners, which is unfortunate, as it is where many people do begin. It’s hard for beginners to accept that...”
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Jersey Shore, season 7.
Featuring:
Chris Christie as Snooki.
Prince Harry as The Situation.
Sandy survivors as random clubgoers at Karma.
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Spy gear! The best part is the spy wigs of course; so curious about what they actually looked like on him. They seem… unlikely but maybe were...
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Watch out people, it’s time for Angry Drunk Dana. Pray that the email addressed to you (and 20 others, cc’d) remains in Drafts. FEAR HER WRATH and...
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This photo, ca. 2002 (maybe 2001?), was taken at a really happening party. I was probably hamming it up for the photo, but I don’t remember it being...
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“Her eyes were ocular globes. They were situated in the orbital cavities. Inside them was the vitreous humor, which was a transparent jelly; on the...”
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“An event that you can still only refer to as The Great Friendster Debacle of ‘05. It’s like reverse fingering all over again.”
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D.C. — not at a hotel, but at a good friend’s home. The place wafts of comforting Indian food, and I’m drinking ginger peach green tea. Waiting for...
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Hey look it’s me looking drunk and adorbs.
The Unavoidable Louise Mensch
At The Awl, I wrote about Louise Mensch née Bagshawe, the Conservative Member of Parliament and chick lit novelist with a gift for being in the right place at the right time — such as in the interrogator’s seat at the Leveson Inquiry when Rupert Murdoch was pelted with a pie.
In our attention-addicted world, the notion of bad PR has become a quaint anachronism, like watching a TV show when it’s broadcast or publishing Katie Roiphe. But while you’d be forgiven for assuming that any appallingly newsworthy transgression is ultimately a positive career move, that’s not always the case. There is such a thing as bad publicity—however, it’s tricky to predict whether a horrid scandal will render you irredeemably persona non grata, or set you up for life. Since it would behoove us all to grasp the whys and wherefores of this complex terrain, here’s a handy quiz.
HHhH by Laurent Binet — a novel about the author’s obsession with Reinhard Heydrich, the high-ranking Nazi who masterminded the Final Solution — won the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman and a bunch of critical raves. I admired aspects of it but found much to quibble with too.
As Fiction Uncovered announces its 2012 best of British fiction selection, I review one of the picks, This is Life by Dan Rhodes, alongside another Paris-set novel, You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik. I loved them both, although the latter’s controversial provenance makes for a complicated reading experience.
“It was so frustrating,” she has said of her pre-fame years. “I was just chomping at the bit.” Readers of a certain age might wonder why such insufferable reflections weren’t expressly vetoed in the “How To Seem Spuriously Relatable To Your Fans” portion of Pixie’s media training. But even a 1990s-born Philip Larkin would probably be writing adolescent poetry about how legit annoying it is when the fame that’s your birthright hasn’t manifested in a timely fashion.
Palestinian author Adania Shibli’s dreamy, beautiful second novel, We Are All Equally Far From Love, is set in an unnamed West Bank-like place. As I say in my review, the story’s multiple perspectives and hypnotic imagery make it feel like the best kind of arty film.
The Inconvenient Astrologer of MI5
German-born Louis de Wohl spent most of his career as a novelist, but during WWII he was employed by British Intelligence to cast Hitler’s horoscope, write a fake astrology magazine, and spread alarmist propaganda about the Nazis invading America.
Hart believed in three major destructive powers: erotic obsession, grief and envy. In her six novels, she anatomized each with an unflinching boldness that was, and remains, unparalleled. Certainly, she had literary influences, particularly Irish writers like her friend Iris Murdoch, Beckett, Joyce, and her beloved Yeats. But as a contemporary novelist, Josephine Hart was peerless.
If the Celebrity Gods created a mystical creature who fulfilled each and every criteria for newsworthyness, she wouldn’t be as tabloid-perfect as Tulisa, the mononymous British singer and X Factor judge whose tumultuous life I reveal at The Awl. (Or indeed, what he said!)
If there’s a nicer compliment than being the fabulous Violetta Bellocchio’s web lady of the week at Italian Grazia, I’m sure I don’t know what it is.
It was thus a matter of crushing disappointment to the nation’s tireless documentarians of extravagance when the divorce settlement paid to his second wife Irina, the mother of five of his children, which had promised to be the biggest in history, only just squeaked into the top five. Irina accepted $300 million, which Roman had completely forgotten was in the pocket of those jeans anyway.
[W]hen the papers were discovered after his death, the script was assumed to be a secret code, a manifestation of schizophrenia. In fact, Walser had developed his “pencil method” to overcome his own inhibitions and neuroses regarding writing: by forcing the flow of his thoughts into a highly structured, shrunken physical form, he found he could achieve mastery over his creative process.
At Words Without Borders, I review Always Coca-Cola by debut author Alexandra Chreiteh, a surprising, disturbing and mordantly funny novel about what it’s like to be an obedient young woman in contemporary Beirut.
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